Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Pack

Its not the easiest life to be a dog in Bali. You start out as a cute little puppy. After a few weeks the cuteness wears off as the skin diseases cause you hair to fall out and your owners reject you. Eventually you find yourself homeless, starving, and pathetically trying to shelter under a shrub during the rainy season. And so it was for 3 little puppies that my gardener happened to notice on his way home the other day. These guys were terrified of people but too weak to run away. Being a kind sort Nengah(my gardener) brought them into our neighborhood and they have since taken up semi-permanent accomodation in my carport. The pups have been accepted by Mallie, the alpha male in the neighborhood as well as Badi, the other dog that hangs out next door.

So for the last week or two I've been learning about kampung dogs. These pups are doing much better after getting stuffed with food from all the generous folks nearby. These guys can eat. I've never seen a dog until now that's able to eat rice until he can't physically get any more down his throat. They are reasonably clever too. It didn't take long to teach them how to take food sitting down and not to try and snap it from my fingers. They are still very traumatized by whatever experience they had earlier and don't really like to be handled, at least not at first. Progress in socializing these guys has been slow. Unfortunately I don't see much future for them if they can't get used to being around people.


Hopefully someone will come around to take 1 or 2 of these little guys in. It would seem a shame to rescue these dogs only to put them down later for lack of an owner.

Addendum: How not to solve your dog problem

6 comments:

Harry Nizam said...

Hi PJ,

They don't really look like kampung dogs. Anyway I hope that someone will come and take good care of them they that you have done to them.

pj said...

The are kampung dogs dude. Two monts on and they've already learned to chase the pemulung and the jamu lady.

colson said...

The dog's world apparently mirrors ours: an abyss between the spoiled pets here and the miserable life of the domesticated wolves and civets elsewhere.

These sorry creatures in your carport have been lucky exceptions till now though. They were not just fortunate enough to have the Bali authorities abandon their plans to kill all dogs because of the rampant rabies some odd six months ago, they even found a safe shelter on top of that.

It leaves you with some unwanted responsibility though :).

pj said...

I think that cull will happen sonner or later. There are a lot of uncollared dogs roaming around. Some of them get to be quite a nuisance - a pack of them had an old woman backed into a corner - it must have been very frightening for her.

I'm hoping to be able to give them away once they are strong (and brave) enough to get all their shots.

Fancy a dog?

Ria Tumimomor said...

ah, people only want things while is in good condition and take no second thought to get rid off it when it is not good anymore...

pj said...

hi dc

Indeed. Not a few weeks after finding these dogs 6 more were dumped on our street. Luckily we were able to find homes for them.